The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) is the data protection legislation enacted in South Africa to enhance the Constitutional right to privacy.
It safeguards personal information processed by public and private bodies.
It sets out eight conditions for the processing of personal information of natural and juristic persons by responsible parties (such as Discovery Health Medical Scheme and companies in the Discovery Group).
Personal information is information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person or existing juristic person. It is information that relates to (among others) their:
- Race, gender, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, age
- Physical, mental, spiritual, economic, cultural or social identity
- Health
- Educational or financial history
- Identifying numbers and addresses
- Biometric details.
The eight conditions for lawful processing of personal information
- Accountability: Discovery must be accountable for the personal information it processes or holds in its possession.
- Processing limitation: We must process personal information in a lawful and reasonable manner. The purpose for processing the information must be lawful, adequate, relevant and not excessive.
- Purpose specification: The purpose for processing personal information must be specific, explicitly defined and lawful.
- Further processing limitation: The reason for processing personal information also must be compatible with the original purpose of collection.
- Information quality: We must take practicable steps to make sure the personal information we process is complete, accurate, not misleading and updated.
- Openness: We must process personal information in a way that lets the client or stakeholder know what is happening to their personal information.
- Security safeguards: We must make sure sufficient security safeguards are in place to secure the integrity and confidentiality of the personal information in our possession or under our control.
- Data subject participation: Our clients and stakeholders (data subjects) have a right to access to their personal information and to correct and update their personal information.
We promise:
- To keep your personal information safe and private.
- Not to sell your personal information.
- To give you ways to manage and review your marketing choices at any time.
- To give you ways to exercise your rights.
To serve you as a client
- To manage our relationship with you or your business
- To develop and carry out marketing activities
- To study how our clients use our products and services
- To communicate with you about our products and services
- To develop and manage our brands, products and services
To improve our business and products
- To deliver our products and services
- To make and manage client payouts
- To manage fees, charges and interest due on client accounts
- To collect and recover money that is owed to us
- To manage and provide treasury and investment products and services
To manage security, risk and crime prevention
- To detect, investigate, report and seek to prevent financial crime
- To manage risk for us and our clients
- To obey laws and regulations that apply to us
- To respond to complaints and seek to resolve them
To manage our business
- To run our business in an efficient and proper way. This includes managing our financial position, business capability, planning, adding, and testing systems and processes, managing communications, corporate governance and audits
- To exercise our rights set out in agreements or contracts
For more information, see our privacy statements on our Privacy page.
Keeping your digital information safe is our highest priority. We're constantly working to make sure that we apply the strongest security measures. We employ experts in data security to keep your information safe.
For more information on how to protect your information and not fall victim to fraud, scams, phishing and theft, visit our Security and fraud page.
We only share your data with companies within the Discovery Group and with trusted third parties. For more information, see our privacy statements on our Privacy page.
Companies within Discovery Ltd ("the Discovery Group"), as well as Discovery Health (Pty) Ltd as administrator of various schemes, share infrastructure, systems and technology to provide an innovative, consistent and safe experience across different channels and teams.
We also process information about you throughout the Discovery Group for administration and fraud prevention, and where applicable, for benefit and reward allocation.
For more information, see our privacy statements on our Privacy page.
Complete the Request access to information form.
For more details, see the Discovery Access to Information Manual.
Log in to the website to visit the Communication preferences page. That's where you can tell us which services you want to hear from and which ones to stop hearing from.
If you are not a Discovery client, visit this page to opt out from direct marketing.
Please note that once you opt out, you will not be informed about special offers and new products.
We must make sure active control measures are in place to ensure that only people who are supposed to have access to personal information can access it. In other words, we are communicating personal information in a secure way. This includes:
- Organisational measures, for example, that we use only a verified email or phone number when sending information, and
- Technical measures such as PDF encryption and Secure Inboxes.
- What does "PDF encryption" mean?
The acronym stands for "Portable Document Format". We will send emails that contain personal information (for example, cellphone number or ID number) as an encrypted document. This means that you will need a password to open the attached document to view the communication. - What is a "Secure Inbox"?
We will deliver all communications to an online document storage place called the "Secure Inbox" which will store all Discovery communication and is available to clients and financial advisers. You will need to log in to your profile on the website or mobile app to access your Secure Inbox.
Log in to the website to view your Secure Inbox.
The Discovery Group Information Officer is Pieter van der Walt. You may contact him on privacy@discovery.co.za.